to Scotland. That’s why Cindy’s not here with me. She’s not speaking to me. I don’t know where else to turn. You’re about to sell the house and land, and your business seems to be really taking off. I mean, you’re working with Disney. They’re a cash cow, right? Or rather a cash mouse.” He tried to smile, but it fell short.
Daphne reached over and tapped Rex’s Rolex. “What are you doing, Rex?”
He pulled his arm back quick as spit. “What do you mean?”
“Rex.” Daphne used her soft voice on him.
He looked up, his eyes full of . . . regret? “I don’t know, Daph. I thought I wanted a different life. It’s not your fault I’m this way. It’s me. I thought I missed out on so much, you know? That one mistake we made defined my entire life. I tried to make the best of it, right? For a while it was fine. I liked our life.”
They’d had a good life, and they’d done a pretty good job of making a silk purse from a sow’s ear. She and Rex had raised an accomplished daughter, built a business, had very little debt, and loved each other . . . at least for a while. Maybe they hadn’t chosen how they started, but they’d gotten along pretty well. But his words said everything about who he was. That one mistake we made defined my entire life. Rex only saw himself as the victim of her getting pregnant. It was his life that was important. Not the young girl who’d had stretch marks at seventeen and, instead of going to senior prom, nursed a colicky baby. Daphne’s dreams hadn’t mattered. Only Rex’s.
That was why they would never reconcile.
Because Daphne dared to want more than being Rex’s wife.
She poured syrup on her pancakes, her joy in a carb-loaded, decadent breakfast as dead as the vows she’d shared with the man in front of her. “You said short term. How short?”
“I don’t know.” Rex rubbed his hands over his face and blew out a breath. “Six months?”
“And you said credit cards.”
“What?”
Daphne took a bite, noting that even though she felt upset, the vanilla-flavored pancakes were delicious. “You said Ellery had credit cards and rent. Like multiple credit cards that you are paying?”
Rex blinked. “I’ve always paid her credit cards.”
“Well, yeah, when she was in college, we gave her an allowance. She had a debit card.”
Rex looked away. “You know how credit card companies are with college kids. They seduce them with free T-shirts and prizes. She got a couple of them. I didn’t mind. Kids need things.”
Daphne set her fork down, irritation at her daughter gathering in her gut. Of course Ellery thought she needed things . . . usually designer things. How many times had she heard her daughter say things like “They expect me to show that I know what is in style” or “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” Their daughter knew the words to say to get what she wanted. She always had, and her father was her favorite parent to manipulate. He was a cream puff awaiting a good squeeze. “Rex, Ellery has two jobs and should be standing on her own two feet. You gave her a car for graduation, one too nice for a twenty-two-year-old, I might add. Your job is done, and she should be footing her own bills, not running up credit card debt for her daddy to pay off.”
“Well, I don’t know about—”
Daphne held up a hand, and Rex snapped his mouth shut. “At her age, we were driving a used van and attending kindergarten open house. You worked twelve-hour days, and I went to work at Saint Peter’s. We were twenty-three and twenty-four respectively, and we adulted very well. Ellery has to learn how to hear no.”
“She heard no. That designer—”
Daphne held up her hand again. “That was Ellery’s fault, Rex. She didn’t apply for other internships.”
Rex inhaled and then blew his breath out, looking utterly miserable. “Maybe so.”
“Look, our daughter is a good person. She is. But our love for her has crippled her, and it’s not just you paying her credit cards or giving her a Lexus. I enable her, too. I swooped in with a job for her, and I’m paying her way more than anyone would pay an inexperienced assistant. And this whole weekend was because I felt guilty.”
“Why did you feel guilty?”
Because I screwed her ex-boyfriend and then watched her current